Tag Archives: Pogo Sketch Pro

Because of my advancing age (43. Blimey) I’m more into podcasts than I am into YouTube vodcasts (which is where my daughter, for example, is more in her natural affinity). I tend to listen to podcasts as I walk to and from work then any free time after that is given to drawing on screens rather than watching them…

So it was from podcasts like TWiT, British Tech, CNET UK and so on that I heard about the sapphire display video from @MKBHD. That probably helped, in the mental formulation of this picture, in as much as it was an audio thing rather than a visual thing.

The only thing I had in mind with the picture, at the beginning, is that I wanted an iPad screen covered in Samphire… The text came last as I was considering how the picture had fallen onto the screen and how it looked. Hopefully people won’t take it seriously and have Marques booted from YouTube.

Regardless. Today started off with some horrible news hit me for six and then some (a youth group connection with the crashed plan yesterday) so I sat in my shed and painted the above image on an iPad 3 using the very fabulous ArtRage app and a Pogo Sketch Pro stylus. Took my mind off the world which was exactly the intention.

Of course if the screen IS made from Samphire I’ll want this video to hit at least 100 million views and to be called a tech guru for the rest of my life.

Process video:

ArtRage is lovely in many ways, especially as (if you remember) it remembers what you’ve done and with a gentle amount of effort you can create a video of your picture coming to be. Hence the video above, gently soundtracked by the very awesome Duke Special.

No idea why but all the talk of Star Wars day put me in mind of Dredd so when a blank newspaper came up as the pic of the day that was the first thing that came to mind…

((DrawQuest, for those who don’t remember, is a wonderful community drawing app which has a very simple and streamlined feature set, allows you to post pictures to a group pool and see the animation of what you came up with at the end of a picture. eg: process video here: drawquest.com/s/55g5kwt ).

…but on Star Wars day I did find the time to draw the above picture… Again in DrawQuest app and the process video can be found here: drawquest.com/s/55u3tss I’d fallen asleep the previous night listening to the very wonderful Creativity Inc by Amy Wallace and Ed Catmull and I suppose that fell into the drawing of the picture.

For May the Fith I decided to draw the darker side of Star Wars days, also in DrawQuest (so, I guess, a sort of trilogy). I was sat in a shed at the time, with no wifi, but had connected earlier to load up the picture. When I got back into the house I pressed upload (making sue the iPad had reconnected – but on upload it failed, repeatedly, and wouldn’t even allow me to take a screenshot. Boo 🙁 That said, in a hundred or so pictures in DQ, this is one of the very few which has failed so, in a way, can’t complain that greatly).

Update: in a mark of horrible timing – and making me feel very guilty about highlighting the misfire earlier – DrawQuest posted this blog about their servers being hacked and the end of the app. Is a very sad and unfair end to a wonderful app. Sad news. Just, sad really.

…but I didn’t want to go back to the app so instead I painted a picture in ArtRage, still sat in the shed 🙂 May the Fith be with you, as the Emperor might say, being envious of not having a day to himself. Sadly, fun time is over, now it’s back to paperwork ready for tomorrow 🙁

And now, having read the DrawQuest blog, I wish I could go back to it. Sad news, as I said, and a lot of DrawQuestrians are very unhappy tonight.

A year ago (and a week, last years setup started on April the 1st) I was doing this:

This year? Well. There was a lot of talk about doing a stand again, and the students and I were certainly keen… But with some tech problems hampering student output, with an EQR just before and another to go back to, not to mention the dreaded O word coming up soon (and in ed that only means one thing) it just couldn’t be worked into the calendar. Very sad but the stress levels are high enough at the moment, ta.

So instead a friend and I went up to do the show together (to just, you know, walk a show floor without being in charge of 40 students and 20 screens for people to draw on 🙂 ) and excellent fun it was (and is, being on until Saturday I believe).

Too much to blather on about now but I shot a lot of video, which I’ll edit when time allows (but soon I hope) and I’ve got a pile of marking I’ve got to get to at some point. But here are some of the bits I enjoyed most. You know they’re going to be about screen art before you scroll down though, right?

I bought an Olloclip! Well. I bought my third Olloclip (having had a 4S version, a 5S version and now a multi macro version 🙂 ) Expect moremacros. Here are a couple of 21 x shots of a 3d printed selfie 🙂

((ironically the above pic is my favourite of the 3d Selfies… Less in focus* but something about it makes me smile.. *the less in focus is more to do with the fact that I took the pic on the train from Watford to London Euston 🙂 ))

So, yes, that also meant I was 3d scanned and printed 🙂

I drew on little screens (a Nokia 1320 and another one but can’t remember what number it was…)

Less little screens (Lenovo 7 inch Windows tablet):

and bigger machines (Dell Venue 11 tablet):

Slightly bigger desktop screens (HP desktop):

…and bigger than that screens:

… and bigger than that screens 🙂

In short? Lots of fun 🙂 Drew quite a few Stylus T. Frogs and Marmite jars, chatted to loads of people, including a few friends from other trade shows and last years Gadg-a-stravaganza and did a lot of demo-ing a range of styli on a range of screens ‘cos I’m more than happy to multi task and chat when someone asks me a question…

Now my feet hurt so I’m sitting and blogging and drinking a cup of coffee 🙂 and, in my mind, I’m sort of planning next years stand, really hoping we do one.

Screen Sharing is my current new happy name for popping in and drawing on their devices. Had a lovely chat with a couple of staff members, as normal, and drew three pictures on three machines in 1 hr 45 mins 🙂

Middle one painted on a Lenovo desktop using Microsoft Paint. Top and Bottom image painted using Fresh Paint app on a Samsung Ultrabook and HP desktop respectively.

Not that I think this is going to be a weekly thing sadly, but was allowed to pop into a different PC World today – the Woking branch – for a potter about while son boy had his feet measured and so on… Very lucky man, me, to get two slots of free doodling time to myself while others do all the hard work 🙂

So, armed with a pencil case full of styli I went in to see which screens they had to play with. The answer surprised me, more than the other day in Guildford.

Starting off – a Sony Vaio touchscreen laptop:

Didn’t have Fresh Paint installed on it (grr) so I loaded up Paint and had a play. Liked it, although not as much as the Vaio sliders which I think are an excellent design and have one of the best in class integrations of a stylus. The laptop (I really should take a note of model numbers and names when doing this) wasn’t really in the right position for me to draw on – I couldn’t move the screen to an angle I was happy with – but to be fair I don’t think I’m the normal shopper that PC World displays are build around.

Next up – a Lenovo laptop:

Also didn’t have Fresh Paint on it (grr x 2). It also, unusually, refused to connect with any of the styli I’d brought with me except for the Nomad Brush (which is normally one I can’t guarantee a screen will like). It wasn’t unpleasant to draw on but this fact alone confused me… I did like the design of the machine though – very eye catching and, obviously, something that is orange is inherently cooler than something that isn’t.

After that – the Lenovo desktop:

Which I like LOADS having played with it on thursday in Guildford PC World. It’s a good screen to draw on. Again it didn’t have Fresh Paint on (grrr x 3) but it liked working with nearly every stylus except for, again, the Jot stylus. Odd.

Lastly the surprise in store:

Up until now I’ve had a couple of companies that I automatically dismiss for the anticipated (and often proven lack of) quality of their screens. Acer, Asus and HP are all companies that I’ve drawn on screens in the past and found them muddy and laggy so, except for the occasional new machine that I’ve thought – give it a try – I tend to not draw on them in a shop. The HP was next to the Lenovo and it struck me that I’d not drawn on one of them for a while. I also liked the design and the idea of a 20 inch tablet (although lets be honest that’s an unusual and unlikely usecase for a good deal of the time). Even so – since I only had to step to the right by three steps I thought I’d give it a go, expecting very little.

Take it all back – the tablet was speedy, the screen flowed beautifully and they even had Fresh Paint installed so I could test it out with that. Unexpectedly (and yes, I know I spelt it wrong 🙁 ) it turned out to be the machine I enjoyed drawing on the most this morning…

So there you have it. Back to work on Monday (sigh 🙁 which is less an indication of not wanting to go back to work – although I’m unsure what my thoughts are on that one just yet and likely won’t really know what I’m thinking until I unlock the door of my dungeon room but more the fact that I’ve felt much more at home with myself this holiday than I expected or anticipated) so the screen splurge will calm a little. But it’s always lovely to draw on a range of machines, and chat to people as I’m doing so. Not bad for an hour of happy doodling anyhow 🙂

Wonder what’s next?

(Incidentally – the keyboard on the Sony is my favourite. Not that that’s been a huge need for me for a while, although I did have a dream that I’d gone back to writing the other day, and the blogs have been getting a little more and more blathery recently so who knows. But anyhow – the Vaio keyboards are very cool if that’s a pressing need for tablet or laptop purchasers…)

Anyhow, also on my birthday the list of styli received (the Wacom Intuos Creative being one):

also contained a Pogo Sketch Pro to replace a lost one (one of my favourites – a delicately beautiful stylus. Fragile but light and wonderful) and a Nomad Mini2 which is completely new on me. I did order a mini 1 once but it was out of stock between ordering and receiving it 🙁

Nomad Mini 2 painted on an iPad using Sketchbook app using a… well… you can guess which stylus.

As expected the Nomad Mini 2 is excellent. A lovely shape and works well with every screen I’ve thrown it at.

I’ve already drawn the Sketch Pro but will do so again sometime soon…

I also drew a Pogo Connect with a Pogo Connect with an app which doesn’t have the capacity to connect to a Pogo Connect. Because that’s the sort of idiot I am.

Pogo Connect, Didlr app, iPad 3.

Next on the stylus list? Nothing planned…Ahem.

But I always say that. I do like the idea of the Hex3 Nota (for the Android support) and the Adonit Evernote edition (for the thin tip support…) and the… Well, I had better stop there I think. Exciting times, as always. Screens, apps and styli are a fabulous combination.

Nabbed my father in laws Nexus 7 to draw on and, as it was an unplanned heist, the stylus I found in my pocket was a Pogo Sketch Pro with sponge tip. At the time this hadn’t been a stylus I’d liked so much on the iPad – didn’t seem as responsive as I would have liked, but that might have been exacerbated by the screen protector I use. On the Nexus 7 it was a joy to use. App – My Paints, which I’ll download when time allows on my Galaxy Tab.